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Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Mega sports events: A double-edged sword

There is a lesson to be learnt from this year’s Formula One
public relations disaster in Bahrain, trade union pressure on Qatar, controversy
over Israel’s hosting of the FIFA Under-21
finals, last year’s successful International Olympic Committee (IOC)
campaign that forced three reluctant Muslim nations to field for the first time
women athletes at a global sporting event and the recent election of a Bahraini
soccer executive as president of the troubled Asian Football Confederation :
mega-events and campaigning for office in international sports associations
empower activists and put nations at risk of reputational damage.

Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone acknowledged as much
saying in April that Bahrain had been “stupid” to allow the Grand Prix to go
ahead because it gave a platform to thousands demonstrating against perceived
autocratic rule and lack of rights. Mr. Ecclestone’s criticism didn’t stop him however
from expressing willingness to extend his contract with Bahrain for another
five years until 2021.

Nevertheless, Mr. Ecclestone’s comment highlighted the fact
that mega events and public office are double-edged swords. They potentially
allow countries to showcase themselves, polish or improve a nation’s international
and a government’s domestic image, serve as tools to enhance soft power and
create commercial, economic and political opportunity. That is if host nations
of mega-events and office holders and their home countries understand that
winning the right to organize a major tournament or an association election
puts on display not just their best side but also their warts and at times even
existential problems.

That empowers activists, spotlights their demands amid
intense media focus and gives them the moral high ground if a country fails to
respond adequately in word and deed. The lesson learnt from recent experiences
in the Middle East is that mega events and public office give not only
countries and governments leverage but also their detractors.

Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Israel prove the point.
Their responses have failed to allow them to gain the upper hand in popular
perception and coverage in the media that are both dominated by activists
highlighting their failure to adhere to international standards of human, labor
and/or gender rights. Worse even, mega events and nominating officials for
regional and international office has reinforced the negative perceptions they
were trying to reverse. Their failure has strengthened calls for such rights to
become key criteria in the awarding of future mega-events. It has also rendered
the separation of sports and politics a fiction and focused attention on the
need to develop systems that acknowledge the relationship but eliminate
conflict of interest and ensure that it is not abused for partisan political
interests on an individual, national, regional and international scale.

For two years running, Bahrain’s Grand Prix backfired with
protesters dominating news coverage. The image that emerged in television
pictures and independent reporting of thousands protesting was not one of an
island state that has put a squashed popular uprising in 2011 behind it, but
one of a nation wracked by continued strife to which the government responds
with force.

By the same token, the newly elected AFC president, Sheikh
Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, head of the Bahrain Football Association, has
been unable to put an end to persistent questions about his alleged failure to
stand up for Bahraini national soccer team players who were arrested, publicly
denounced, tortured and charged for taking part in anti-government demonstrations
two years ago during a popular uprising that was brutally squashed. The charges
were later dropped under pressure from FIFA.

Sheikh Salman’s legalistic argument that football and
politics are separate and that he had not violated FIFA or AFC rules rather
than addressing the larger moral issues involved has resulted in persistent
media questioning, activist calls for his disqualification and a reinforcement
of the Bahraini government’s image as repressive and uncompromising. Rather
than categorically refusing to address the issue, Bahrain and Sheikh Salman,
although restricted by being a member of a royal family that is dominated by
hard liners, would have been better served by allowing the government’s own
inquiry into the suppression of the revolt that admitted to wrongdoing by
security forces, including torture, to shape his response and deflate the
criticism.

Similarly, neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia have succeeded in
turning the tide of public opinion or at least establishing a degree of equity
in perception. To be fair, Saudi Arabia, which grudgingly allowed a few
underperforming expatriate Saudi women to represent it at the 2012 London
Olympics, left the field to its critics by effectively refraining from
engagement in the debate about severe restrictions imposed on women in the
kingdom. In doing so, it failed to leverage assets it could have deployed to
moderate perceptions, including the economic clout of women in the kingdom as a
result of rights enshrined in Islamic law, moves to authorize physical
education in private schools, the re-emergence of women’s health clubs, plans
to license for the first time women’s soccer clubs that currently operate in a
legal nether land and last year’s unprecedented election of a commoner as head
of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation to replace an appointed royal.

Similarly, a video on You Tube features Palestinian youth in
a village near the wall separating Israel from the West Bank tearing off their
FC Barcelona jerseys, hanging them over razor wire the Israeli military erected
around the village and setting them on fire. The protest was part of a campaign
protesting Israel’s hosting in June of the U-21 championship finals intended to
counter Israel’s increasingly tarnished image as the obstacle to settling its
long standing dispute with the Palestinians, growing objections to Israeli
policies perceived as intentionally making daily life difficult for West Bank
residents and its ever greater integration into European soccer. Israel is part
of UEFA rather than Asia because of Arab refusal to play Israeli teams as long
as a peace settlement has not been achieved.

The U-21 is the most important tournament Israel has ever
hosted and comes at a time that Israel has lost significant ground in the
global battle for hearts and minds. A hunger strike last year by a Palestinian
national soccer team player who was suspected of association with a militant
group, Islamic Jihad, but never charged proved to be costly in the global
soccer world. The player was released under pressure from FIFA, UEFA and
FIFPro, the global players’ organization amid fears that he would die as a
result of his hunger strike.

"Football is an effective vehicle for Israel
to rehabilitate its image with the international community. A large sporting
event is an ideal opportunity for Israel to present itself as a normal
country," Tamir Sorek, a University of Florida expert on Israeli soccer
told UAE newspaper, The National.

As a result, more than 60 prominent European players,
including Chelsea's Eden Hazard, Arsenal's Abou Diaby and Paris Saint-Germain's
Jeremy Menez, publicly warned that holding the U-21 in Israel would be “seen as
a reward for actions that are contrary to sporting values.” Published last year
as Israeli forces attacked Gaza, the players declared: "We, as European
football players, express our solidarity with the people of Gaza who are living
under siege and denied basic human dignity and freedom.” UEFA, denying that it was mixing sports and
politics, rebutted criticism of the awarding of the tournament to Israel by
saying that it would bring ‘people’ – Israelis and Palestinians -- together

Even Qatar, the nation that has gone the furthest in seeking
to address criticism and engage with its critics, has so far been unable to
shift the epicenter of international public opinion and perception. Its major
issue is lack of adherence to international labor standards and labor
conditions denounced by trade unions and human rights groups as modern day
slavery rather than expected Islamic restrictions on fan behavior during the
2022 World Cup, persistent unproven allegations of wrong doing in its campaign
to win hosting rights and concern about lack of a soccer tradition and extreme
summer temperatures.

Criticism of labor conditions, including the restrictive
sponsorship system that puts workers at the mercy of their employers, not only
in Qatar but in the Gulf at large, is long standing. What has changed is that
the hosting of the World Cup has shifted the playing field. The driver of
pressure for change are no longer human rights groups like Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch who have at best moral power and little
ability to mass mobilize but an international trade union movement that
potentially can activate 175 million members in 153 countries.

With foreign workers constituting a majority of the
population and at least half a million more expected to swell their ranks to
work on World Cup-related infrastructure projects, Qatar has moved to improve
material working and living conditions and the 2022 organizing committee has
issued a charter of workers’ rights. The
moves fall short of union demands for the creation of independent workers’ organizations
and collective bargaining and despite talks with labor ministry officials has
put the two on a collision course with the International Trade Union
Confederation (ITUC) demanding that world soccer body FIFA deprive Qatar of its
hosting rights.

The jury is out as the battle unfolds. The outcome is likely
to demonstrate the limits of the leverage of both parties and the price they
risk paying. The unions could well succeed in reducing if not stopping the
influx into Qatar of unionized labor but are unlikely to persuade millions of
impoverished unskilled and semi-skilled Asian workers from seeking greener
pastures and a better life for their loved ones. To project success, the ITUC
has to win the buy in of its members, many of whom are preoccupied with
resolving problems arising from the global economic crisis. By the same token,
Qatar will likely have little problem retaining its hosting rights and
attracting non-unionized labor, but will continue to suffer reputational
damage, defeating one of the goals of its comprehensive sports strategy.

If reputational damage and failure to achieve a key goal is
a host nation’s primary risk, activists may see achieving that as a moral
victory. Similarly, they are likely to claim any progress such as an improvement
of workers’ material labor and living condition as a success even if they were
unable to meet their ultimate goal.

Underlying their inability, however is the
fact that in taking on Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel they were
addressing issues perceived by government to effect national security if not
their nation’s very existence. That inability highlights limitations to their
power and the uphill battle of sparking a meaningful broad-based global
campaign like the sports boycott of South Africa that ultimately was effective
only because it exploited a willingness in the international community to
confront apartheid. The international community has proven so far to have
little appetite for paying more than lip service to workers’ rights in the Gulf,
women’s rights in Saudi Arabia or Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.

At the bottom line, the message for host countries is: mega
events constitute a platform for showcasing both a country’s positive aspects
as well as its warts. The question potential hosts have to ask themselves is what
price are they willing to pay in terms of reputational risk if they are not
willing or able to address their vulnerabilities. That question is all the more
acute as international sports bodies like FIFA are under pressure to make
human, labor and women’s rights part of the criteria for awarding events. In
doing so, they are likely to raise the barrier for a country’s chance of
gaining the opportunity to host a major event.

For activists, the message is one of empowerment but
empowerment that comes with the responsibility to employ it effectively. The
trade union’s battle with Qatar over labor rights is likely to become a case
study. With nine years to go until the World Cup, the question is whether ITUC
played its trump card too early by already asking FIFA to deprive Qatar of the
World Cup.

In doing, so the ITUC has gone out on a limb. Union
officials concede privately that European unions are preoccupied with austerity
measures and stark unemployment in the Eurozone, US unions confront slow
recovery in North America and Asian unions with the exception of Japan have
demonstrated little engagement.

“What happens to the workers if Qatar loses the World Cup?
The ITUC loses its bargaining chip. Moreover, they are campaigning for taking
away the World Cup even before the bids for construction of stadiums have been
awarded. Qatar’s construction boom will continue with or without the World Cup.
Even if they lose those workers, others will come. It’s the market’s push and
pull factor. If the Nepalese don’t come, the Bangladeshis will. If the
Bangladeshis don’t come, the Vietnamese will and if the Vietnamese don’t come,
the Chinese will,” said an independent labor analyst.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, director of the University of Würzburg’s
Institute of Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer blog

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile